Acres of art

Online: Dennis Avery created a Web site, galletameadows.com, that contains hundreds of photographs of the sculptures, as well as a map that shows where they are in Borrego Springs.

The metal beasts in a sculpture extravaganza in the desert around Borrego Springs now have some company – artwork of vineyard workers.

In the past couple of years, Dennis Avery has commissioned dozens of sculptures by Perris artist Ricardo Breceda and placed them all over town on some of the 3 square miles of land he owns.

Most are life-size or larger sculptures of beasts that once roamed the Borrego Valley when it was a lush forest. Mammoths, camels, turtles, wild horses and giant sloths are some of the metal art pieces that have been attracting the curious to the town.

Seventy-two pieces of art now are displayed, and amazingly, vandalism has struck just once, in a slightly creepy case.

Avery said a sculpture of a dog walking with a friar was damaged. Someone neutered the dog for reasons Avery can't imagine.

The latest additions to the collection are 12 farmworkers in a field southwest of Di Giorgio and Big Horn roads. In the 1950s and 1960s, a large vineyard operated in Borrego Springs.

Avery said the farmworker sculptures are not necessarily historically accurate, which has upset some people. For instance, one sculpture is of a woman holding a baby. Babies wouldn't have been in the field. And some of the men are shown wearing sombreros, which “purists” say was not the case.

Avery said it's important to remember the pieces are art, not historical re-creations.

Avery, 68, is the multimillionaire son of the founders of Avery Dennison, one of the world's largest label-making companies. In the early 1990s, he was persuaded to buy land in Borrego Springs, primarily by people who wanted open space preserved.

He calls the 3 square miles of noncontiguous property Galleta Meadows.

Avery's plans for future sculptures are uncertain.

“It's been one of the most fun things I've ever done in my life,” he said.